Chapter 24: Season 7 - Payback Time

“Pierre and I have Legion business to attend to,” the Chevalier informed me later that evening. He and I were staying at the Lancelot Hotel and I had thought we would be returning to Port-Vendres the following morning.

“How long will the business take you?”

He pondered for several moments. “We have to travel to Nantes. I reckon three days will see us through.”

I knew better than to ask what the business comprised. Legion business was nobody business but the Legion’s. I shrugged. “I’ll find something to keep me occupied. I still haven’t been to the top of the Eiffel Tower or visited Versailles.”

“I thought you would be spending time with Vivienne?”

“No, Vivienne is just using me until she allows her husband back into her bed. Madeleine put me straight on that last night.”

“I’m glad Mam’selle Crozier has given you some reward for what you have done. She is ascending the greasy pole with a lot of help from you.”

“And you too, Chevalier.”

“That’s as maybe, but she hasn’t given me the same sort of reward.” He chuckled. “She probably thinks I wouldn’t be able to handle it, and she would be right!”

Four days later the Chevalier returned from his Legion business trip.

“Let’s go home,” he said, and we took the noon TGV to Perpignan from the Gare du Lyon. During the journey we talked about the future, or rather the Chevalier talked about the future.

“Next season will probably be our last. I am something of a redundant partner in the team. There are no April-December pairs available, or very few, and all the ‘porking ‘ is done by you. I could continue to ply the casinos and card games but I can do that just as well in Port Vendres without all the travelling, which I am finding wearisome.”

“But what about young companions for you, Chevalier? Surely you haven’t given up the pleasures of the flesh?”

“Indeed not, Rafael. I will keep porking until my last breath. I shall continue spending the winter months in Agadir where I am more than adequately taken care of in the fleshy pleasure stakes. I can always rent a young girl when in Europe. There seems to be more of them available, which I suppose is due to the many people traffickers and sex slave importers. In one way I curse myself for adding to their filthy trade and then I think how else are poor young girls to make a living if not by renting out their bodies? I make a point to use only the most reputable and honest of escort firms, if that is not an oxymoron.”

“Will what happened in Marseille put a stop to the sex slave traffic?”

He shook his head. “When, if, the two syndicates begin fighting each other it might curb the worst of the excesses but young flesh will always be available, home grown if not imported. Even the streets of Perpignan are lined with females of all ages and colours, available for all and every sexual perversion and fetish. Which reminds me.” He opened his briefcase and withdrew a newspaper. “You may be interested in the story on page six. Near the bottom of the left hand column.”

I saw that the newspaper was German, Die Geilenkirchener Tagesschau, and was dated ten days earlier. My German was not too good but I managed to get the gist of the news story. A taxidermist shop in Teveren, a village near Geilenkirchen, had been attacked by Animal Rights activists and set ablaze.

I gave the Chevalier a puzzled look. “I don’t quite follow. Why should we be interested in Animal Rights activists? And do dead animals have any rights?”

“The shop was owned by Thierry Vautour. He served with Gaston Roux in the army when they were conscripts. They were posted to the same logistics unit and served their two years of National Service together. The pair probably made an illicit fortune as they were store men. Once our surveillance team had seen Roux visiting the shop we knew there had to be a connection, although it took months to track down. Roux’s insurance, his deposit box duplicate key, was kept in Vautour’s shop safe...”

I was confused and interrupted the Chevalier. “But presumably the safe was not affected by the fire and the key is still there?”

The Chevalier chuckled. “The key has been replaced by a replica, counterfeit, key.”

Now I was even more confused. “When was the key replaced? Before or after the fire?”

“During!”

To save me even more confusion the Chevalier explained what had happened, and how. “The taxidermist had more security systems guarding his shop than most banks. He had been targeted by Animal Rights activists numerous times and the building was sown up tighter than a Carmelite nun’s chatte. Any attempt to burgle the place would have the police responding and Vautour contacting Roux, who would probably change the location of his safety deposit box and obtain a new key. The only way to gain access without alarming Vautour, and in turn Roux, was if some incident at the shop had ‘first responders’ attending. Teveren is adjacent to NATO Air Base Geilenkirchen, an operating base of the NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Force. Many of the civilian workers on the site are employed locally and live/lodge in the village. By a happy happenchance the fire station, Freiwillige Feuerwehris Teveren, is staffed by volunteers. One of our operatives was taken on as a maintenance man on the base and he found lodgings in Teveren. After a few weeks in the village he joined Freiwillige Feuerwehris Teveren.”

I supposed the ‘operative’ was a former legionnaire, seeing as Gaston Roux had been designated ‘Legion business’.

The Chevalier continued with the story. “When Animal Rights activists fire bombed Vautour’s establishment our man was on duty and was with the fire engine first on the scene...”

“What a coincidence that Animal Rights activists should attack when your operative was on duty!”

The Chevalier grinned. “Yes, very coincidental and fortuitous. But that often happens when the Legion is involved. The fire engine’s crew were concerned the fire might spread to neighbouring shops and began fighting the blaze outside the building. Our man volunteered to check the shop for any fires within. Once inside he started a small fire in the hallway, and then opened the safe, which unlike the security system was an obsolete piece of equipment with a lock a Girl Guide with a bobby pin could have picked. He exchanged the deposit box key for a lookalike, extinguished the hallway fire, and then re-joined his fellow fire-fighters outside who were keeping the blaze going until the professional fire brigade from Geilenkirchen arrived. Vautour arrived soon after and thanked the volunteers for their prompt action. He even gave the Teveren Fire Chief 100 euros for the Fire-fighter’s Rosenmontag Fund.”

“A job well done,” I said. “Now we can bring Roux to justice.”

“Already achieved,” he said, and handed me another newspaper, yesterday’s issue of ‘Le Télégramme de Brest.’ On page three there was full page story headed,

’Mystery death of prominent Breton ‘

The body of Gaston Roux, a well-known local businessman and the deputy mayor of Dinard, was discovered yesterday morning in a room at a motel outside Nantes. It is thought Monsieur Roux accidently died during an act of autoerotic asphyxiation. The police are satisfied that no other person was involved. No suicide note was discovered.

The article went on to give a potted history of Roux and I stopped reading. “What on earth is autoerotic asphyxiation?” I asked.

“Erotic asphyxiation is the intentional restriction of oxygen to the brain for the purposes of sexual arousal,” the Chevalier said. “Autoerotic asphyxiation is when the procedure is done by a person to themselves. It is a dangerous act and has been the death of many men.”

“The police don’t think it suicide but were they informed of the fire at Thierry Vautour’s shop? That might have caused him to...”

“It wasn’t suicide, Rafael. Take my word for it.”

Light dawned. “You and Pierre were in Nantes on Legion business?”

“Correct, and Legion business is no one else’s business but the Legion’s. Roux was criminal scum and has been dealt with. Rough justice, but justice.”

I thought back to the times the Chevalier had been away on Legion business. At least on two occasions during the time he was away a high profile businessman or politician had been involved in fatal accidents; a car crash, a yacht sinking. I hadn’t though anything of it at the time but now I stared at Chevalier with wide eyes. “You’re an assassin!”

The Chevalier gave a tigerish smile “You have an overdeveloped sense of theatre, Rafael. I am more an environmental sanitizing operative. My team and I clean up the vermin and filth that others are too fastidious or squeamish to touch. I have been employed in that capacity since my retirement from active service. No one really leaves the Legion until death.”